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What is that, Mama?

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I realize that I haven’t blogged for a month because of the frantic level of activity in my household as the school year ends and summer activities ramp up. And here I am back –  with a cranky old prude comment. 

On Saturday night, I attempted to watch the hockey game with my two oldest daughers (11 and 9), both hockey mad. I am not hockey mad but can tolerate it at this stage of the season and was prepared to take one for the team in the name of good old Canadian family togetherness (if you can call watching TV “togetherness”).  

I lasted not quite one period. Not because of the game, but the ads. It seemed at every break in play, we were subjected to this little treasure or perhaps this variation of the same theme. 

Look, I am not sure that viagra represents any kind of moral issue, but how many kids do you figure are watching game 4 of the Stanley Cup final on a Saturday night? Do they really need this? Does Pfizer and the CBC really need to do this to all of us? Perhaps I should have been more prepared to take advantage of the “teaching moment” so kindly provided to me and my children by Pfizer and Hockey Night in Canada, but I just wanted to watch the hockey game with my kids. And, from giant billboard bra ads to beer ads to jean ads, I do get a bit fed up with my children’s sensibilities being assaulted with “adult” sexuality (usually presented in its most puerile form) every time we turn on the TV, walk down the street or get on a streetcar or subway. 

Look, at 9 and 11, I recognize that my daughters are ready for some serious discussions about sex. But what they don’t need and can’t get away from is a barrage of tawdry sexual images that don’t really have anything to do with a mature (or maturing) understanding of human sexuality, and are no doubt very unhelpful in achieving it. 

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Tanya adds: You sound as comforted as I am, knowing my 11 year old nephew crosses the bridge to Montreal daily, every time facing a billboard like this.  I fear for his concept of sexuality, and for the risk these ads pose as far as contributing to traffic accidents. I can barely take my eyes off them!

Note: Click on ‘bikinis’ to see actual ad images.

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Veronique adds: That reminded me of an older gentleman I knew. When walking through a shopping mall with is wife, he would stop in front of the La Senza displays (you know, those ceiling-high posters of women in underwear?), look at his wife and announce: “Look dear, just like at home!”

“Hey Cos, do something, call me a cab!”

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“OK, you’re a cab.”

Saturday evening, my oldest daughter and I indulged in a late night viewing of Singin’ in the Rain. We like older movies. I like older romances, Liesl likes vintage war movies like The Devil’s Brigade. Both of us love Singin’ in the Rain.

I like watching movies for pure entertainment, but I can never quite turn my mother-radar off. As Liesl grows into a young woman, finding movies that appeal to her maturing tastes while communicating positive values is increasingly challenging. Liesl’s brother Kurt – who is only a year younger – is more of a “special effects” kind of guy. The technology involved in making movies matters more than the storyline: “smooching” is generally frowned upon and character development fast-forwarded when not altogether absent. At any rate, I like when male characters sweep their female counterparts off their feet before dropping them at their doorstep – but no further – with nothing more than a kiss. But yesterday I found yet another reason to like 50-year-old movies:


 

Isn’t it striking how the image of the female body has changed since 1952? When women were still allowed to have hips and thighs, just to name two body parts that have now been expunged from entertainment?

 

If only to bring this point home, last weekend was Brigitta’s dance recital. Argh. The dancing was grand, I’ll give them that. But the costumes? Some of them were cute, most of them were ridiculous and four routines were all-time worst dance outfit chart toppers. Vile. My brother-in-law excused himself from recital duty saying that one had to be a pervert to sit for two hours looking at little girls prance around in swimsuits. My father, who takes recital duty very seriously, was not amused by the suggestion. Nonetheless, I felt uncomfortable at times looking at teenage femmes fatales dance to the James Bond theme in fishnet stockings and leather bras. What I found most disconcerting however was the apparent disregard of those who pick the outfits for those who don’t fit in them. The girls making-up the dance school’s clientele are in large part suburban little girls looking to have a good time, not professional dancers. Some outfits served no other purpose but to showcase why some little girls will never be prima ballerinas. The body types have not changed since Singin’ in the Rain, only the expectations have.

A tempest in a teacup

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So there was a demonstration in Montreal against Bill C-484 yesterday after all. Read about it, here.

Many carried grisly signs; others opted for clever slogans such as “Epp, Harper: Je fais ce que je veux avec mes oeufs,” (What I do with my ovaries is up to me.) After the rally, protesters marched down the hill to Berri Square.

I say go to town, you and your ovaries–it’s more unborn babies I’m concerned about. And when you can’t tell the difference, what you really need is a biology lesson.

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Tanya adds: If the journalist had checked with the translation department, he’d have known the sign said ‘I do with my eggs whatever I wish.’

She gets her eggs fertilized, after which point it’s no longer an egg. If she’s seeking an abortion, did she wish to fertilize that egg? Likely not. So has she really done what she wished with her eggs? Seems the opposite is true.

Her sign should have read: “I do what I don’t mean to do to my eggs”

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Andrea adds: Thank goodness Tanya is on our team. For correct translations and the accompanying acerbic commentary.

Planned Parenthood: Not so much emphasis on the parent

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Planned Parenthood tirelessly opposes every parental involvement law now in effect and works diligently to prevent new laws from passing.

In states like Pennsylvania, teens need parental consent to have a legal abortion. To get around involving their parents, teens may apply for a judicial bypass. Philadelphia lawyer, Barbara Bailey, has “shepherded more than a thousand teens through judicial bypass since the early 1990’s.” Watch the full video.

I don’t see teens who have good, healthy relationships with their parents coming for a bypass. They tell their parents.

In other words, this translates into more parents hearing about what’s going on in their teenage daughters’ lives. Where this type of parental involvement law doesn’t exist, any girl the least bit squeamish about telling her parents she is pregnant (thus admitting she is sexually active) can bypass that whole awkward conversation. That teen can march right into a Planned Parenthood clinic and have herself an abortion, go home and cry for 2 days, having now increased six fold her risk of attempting suicide. She’s also twice as likely as her peers to start abusing drugs or alcohol.

35 states have parental involvement laws. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 40 percent of teen abortions take place with no parental involvement. I’d be curious to know the stats. How many girls who have fair to excellent relationships with their parents offer up their intention to have an abortion when they are not legally required to do so? As a parent, wouldn’t you want to know?

Some argue parental involvement laws create more problems than they solve.

Really?

Allowed to operate, but no funding

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So this Toronto Star article says there was a vote today at York University and pro-life groups will be allowed to operate but won’t receive funding. All that negative publicity for them to achieve pretty much the status quo (I mean really, how much money did pro-life groups ever get?) and a one hundred per cent guarantee that “anti-choice” groups will be back with a vengeance, next year. (Have a great summer.)

The York University student council has voted in favour of a motion to ban funding to anti-abortion groups on campus.

The controversial decision means that groups promoting anti-abortion ideas will not be reimbursed by the student union but will still be allowed to operate on campus, said Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students.

“This policy does not apply to religious organizations,” said Massa. “It only applies to groups whose sole purpose is to spew anti-choice rhetoric on our campus.”

Eight members of the York University student council voted unanimously for the decision on Sunday afternoon.

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Tanya adds: So first, we have to prove that being pro-life is not just a Christian point of view. Then we have to be religious in order to be allowed to be pro-life. Tell me that’s not self-propagating! “Welcome to York U, where you may not practice free thought, but are excused from the norm if you ascribe to antiquated religion, in which case we are forced to exercise tolerance.”

From Andrea, with love

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I’m posting my letters to Gilary and Hamid of the York Federation of Students, and to Mr. Tiffin, the VP of students, regarding my dismay over their attempts to ban pro-life clubs on campus. “From Andrea, with love,” was not, incidentally, my chosen sign off. But it sounds like From Russia, with Love, making an afternoon of letter writing into a James Bond affair. How exotic.

Dear Mr. Tiffin:

I am writing to register my disapproval of the recent attempt of the York Federation of Students to silence those who oppose abortion on campus.

The recent and ongoing attempts of the York Federation of Students have been of great interest to me—especially given the flawed justification for the ban. I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those many, many women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. Abortion is not a woman’s right. Equality for women on campus, as elsewhere, is not contingent on access to abortion. I represent hundreds of women across Canada who are against abortion, precisely because we are in favour of women’s rights.

There is a growing body of research to suggest post-abortive women do not fare as well as other women who have not had abortions. There are higher rates of depression, depressive episodes, suicide, suicide ideation, alongside a host of other negative repercussions, physical and mental.

The health and welfare of every woman, especially vis-à-vis high abortion rates for those who are of university age, should be of grave concern to the York University administration.

I would encourage you to ensure that the pro-life side is given fair treatment and equal funding alongside all other clubs and positions at the university. And I would challenge you to publicly support these pro-life students—if not in the name of life, if not to support true equality and true rights for women, then in the name of freedom of speech.

AND

Dear Hamid and Gilary:

 

I am writing to ask you to reconsider your views on pro-life groups on campus.

 

I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. I believe ours is a unique approach to the abortion debate.

 

Why? Firstly, we are pro-life precisely because we are pro-woman. Secondly, I am not interested in legislative action. Rather, I am interested, as my web site explains, in seeing abortion dwindle and decrease in Canada because that is what women choose. Thirdly, we are a non-religious group. We are made up of a team of nine bloggers now and I encourage you to log on to the site, and comment where you see fit. I welcome any and all comments, negative or positive. Each woman is able to blog with maximum freedom of expression and as a team we represent the breadth and depth of what “anti-choicers” can look like.

 

We are convinced at ProWomanProLife that women are not served well by abortion, this based on good, peer-reviewed research. We believe that women can get better, and indeed, deserve better than abortion. And we believe that women ought to be able to discuss this issue with the maximum freedom of expression.

 

So it is with great sadness that I realize, were a student chapter of ProWomanProLife.org to develop at York University, it would be banned.

 

I would encourage you to reconsider your view of so-called anti-choice groups on campus. Tolerance can only exist where there is disagreement—certainly you would not ban every conflicting view. I believe that pro-life clubs on campus can only serve to strengthen the type of strong community you seek to foster at York University.

  

Whatever you do, never say you’re sorry

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My favorite uncle passed away a few months ago. He once teased that he was only my favorite uncle by default, as he belonged to my favorite aunt. They had been happily married 41 years. She mourned very deeply for weeks. Although she seems much better now, we who love her do understand that her mourning period is not over. Autumn will bring with it his birthday. Then will come her first Christmas without him, not to mention next spring reminding her of the days she spent by his hospital bed before he finally died.

I think of the state my aunt is in now. She isn’t on the constant verge of tears; she laughs and jokes…I recognize her again. It would, however, be inconceivable for her to now share how easy it has been to recover from the loss of her dear husband. She knows these things take time, and come in waves. No one can safely say, after a few days or weeks, how an experience has permanently affected them.

With this understanding in my pocket, I took a trip to I’m Not Sorry.net. As I understand it, this site is the pro-choice response to Silent No More (or here in Canada). Both of these offer women’s stories of past abortions.

I can safely say that two-thirds of the testimonies I read on I’m Not Sorry were by women who had undergone an abortion within the last year; most shared their stories a day or two after the fact. Wisely, a pro-choice organization has decided to publish these stories, which don’t usually lack emotion, but do often lack any sort of full perspective of what the abortion experience is really like, long-term, for a woman.

 

Some of the women’s stories enumerated the following sentiments:

  • “I am still unsure how I feel about everything, although I know what’s done is done. I am unsettled, but I am starting to feel better.” Amelia; 2 days later

  • “It has been two weeks, and I haven’t cried in days, I have slept, and I know my baby is in Heaven, and one day when I know I can do it, and provide a better life, I will.” Ashley; 2 weeks later

  • “Checking my phone for a missed call from him [the father] hoping I could tell them [the clinic] to keep the $400.00, and make my way home with my baby… He wants me to feel bad and terrible [now] and I never will.” Ashley D.; the next day

  • “I have no idea what this will bring me in 20 years. But it has brought me relief. No regrets.” Kayla; the next day

  • “I do not regret the first abortion that I had…but I do not want to do this to myself again.” Nadia; 1 year ago

These are the portraits of women who escape ‘unscathed’ from the abortion experience. No words.

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Andrea adds: Some of the best testimonies against abortion are found when pro-choicers let women express themselves openly. “It has been two weeks, and I haven’t cried in days, I have slept, and I know my baby is in Heaven, and one day when I know I can do it, and provide a better life, I will.” This is a good reminder of what happens in an abortion. A baby dies. Now we can look and say–there are reasons for that, or these situations are complicated, or I couldn’t tell her what to do, or “who are you to say, Andrea Mrozek, that she would have been better off keeping this baby?” But I am going to stick to my guns and say this: We are always better off when we keep babies, when we let them live and when we don’t give women like Ashley–so poignantly describing her tears and how she is now sleeping again–that choice. “My baby is in Heaven”? Your baby could have been right here on earth.

Remember Emma Beck when you begin to think abortion is compassionate… her babies were in Heaven and she went on to join them prematurely.

Two anecdotes on a Saturday morning

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These two anecdotes came to me courtesy of distinctly non-religious people and the women featured are their friends, not mine:

 

 

One: A woman, now married, was once a doctor who did some abortions. No more. But now she’d like to conceive and can’t and says she thinks God is punishing her.

 

 

Two: A woman, single, gets pregnant and has an abortion. She later gets married and has a son, all is well. He is killed in an accident in his teens. She thinks that God is punishing her.

 

 

A couple of thoughts come to me. First off, there are repercussions from abortion that are not easily measured. It would have to be some kind of specially-designed, longitudinal study that could get at the guilt and pain two decades later, arising the result of the death of a son, for example.

 

Secondly, I do not buy into the God as Great Punisher model, and I do not do so with some justification. God in the Christian conception does not run “on one strike and you’re out!” and is rather a God of love and forgiveness, even when egregious mistakes are made. Plus, these random comments show that religious or non, God is in the picture, for many folks. And those in the abortion-related business, ought to be prepared to address meta-physical questions, and correct misconceptions, too.

 

But the main point is that I am amazed at the manner in which abortion haunts these women.  These are some of the things I hear on the street in my life, day to day. They just come up, when we give the opportunity.

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